Subject: slow file access from within office xp a (W2K)

[mgodinez]

Dear Greater I.T. Intellect,

I have a win2kprosp2 client w/ the following specs:

OS – MS Windows 2000 Pro. SP2
Version – 5.0.2195 Service Pack 2 Build 2195
System Type – X86-based PC
Processor – X86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 3 GenuineIntel ~667…
Bios Version – 06/09/00
Time Zone – Pacific Standard Time
Total Physical Memory – 523,568 KB
Available Physical Memory – 392,576 KB
Total Virtual Memory – 1,613,028 KB
Available Virtual Memory – 1,385,640 KB
Page File Space – 1,089,460 KB

The client is running on a native Windows 2000 Domain. The server has sp2. Client is dual boot between win98se and win2kprosp2. Win98SE volume specs. Include FAT32, 14.2GB capacity w/ 5.57GB free. Win2kprosp2 volume specs. Include NTFS5, 7.36GB capacity w/ 1.31GB free.

The user had Office 2000 Professional installed on the NTFS volume. We upgraded Office 2000 Pro to Office XP Pro. After the upgrade the following anomaly arose:

Launch Word XP/Excel XP. Hit the file menu. Select the open function. The window appears prompting the user to find the file that he or she wishes to open. This all works fine. When the user hits the ‘look in’ drop down button, the client takes about 25sec. To .5min to list the folders/files on the system. This also happens w/ the save as function.

Any help on this one, would be greatly appreciated.

Please help?

m.godinez
seattle, wa.

[Smitty]

mgodinez

FWIW

I noticed your unanswered post on Newsgroups..Have you seen this article posted on another forum?

<a target="_blank" href=http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win2000/t998004254>http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win2000/t998004254</a>

Smitty

[mgodinez]

Smitty,

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I was able to resolve this dillema.

The problem lies in network mapped drives. Windows XP or XP in general seems to do a lot of network browsing. I've read many posts, w/ persons attempting to stop this browsing service, but this function seems to be deeply embedded in the OSI.

Usually, mapped drives off the server wouldn't be a problem. The reason being, the server should always be on, therefore, the network shares should always be available and hence mappable.

But my client (client a) that was experiencing this problem, had a mapped network drive to the c drive of another client (client b) on the network.

Both clients are turned off at the end of each work day. The person attending to client A comes to work rather early. So when he boots up his machine, logs onto the domain, and tries to find/open a file from within word...his client is looking for the mapped network drive on client B. It is not there, because client B is not on. This is the lag time in the file access from within Office XP. The lag time is due to the client looking for a network resource that is not there.

This issue does not seem to be recognized by the Microsoft KB. My searches were futile, anyway.

My workaround was to disconnect the mapped network drive on client A. Instead I just put a shortcut on the desktop pointing to client B. So whenever the user on client A needed to access data on client B, he would do it via this shortcut, rather than a mapped network drive.

Hope this helps.

m. godinez
seattle, wa.

[Smitty]

Glad you solved your problem..Newsgroup updated too..

Regards

Smitty